In a series of uncharacteristically tentative performances, ITV chairman Michael Grade struggled to explain why no one would be sacked in the wake of Deloitte's damning report into ITV's mishandling of premium rate phone services.

He defended his decision on the grounds that bad as it undoubtedly was, the report had been extremely thorough and found no evidence of criminality or "venality". But looked at more closely, at least two of these claims struggle to bear the weight of scrutiny.

To take "venality" first. While it may well be true that individual producers had nothing to gain financially from the various bits of jiggery-pokery, that can hardly be said for the company.

Remember that, in the wake of the Carlton/Granada merger, ITV was under extreme pressure to maintain and, if possible, improve its revenues.

The scope for further cost savings was reducing, and the combination of an advertising recession and the dreaded CRR mechanism (introduced at ITV's own suggestion as the price of being allowed to merge) pushed the search for new sources of revenue up the corporate agenda. Top of the list were premium rate telephone services (PRTS).

Producers were encouraged to dream up as many ways to inject PRTS into programmes as possible - with GMTV held up as the model to follow at staff briefings. This became a corporate obsession which even went as far, at one stage, as considering whether there might be a role for PRTS as part of the national news. This was rejected, but the schedule began sprouting PRTS at every opportunity.

And, in the rush to grab the viewers' cash, there was not a thought apparently for anything resembling a compliance system to make sure people were getting what they had paid for. As Grade said the other week, there was indeed a "serious cultural failure within ITV" but this one really did start at the top. If this wasn't "venality" - albeit of a corporate type - it is hard to know what is.

Then there's the question of who did benefit financially. Grade refused to be drawn on the question of which executive bonuses might have been linked to PRTS revenues. But you can be fairly certain, given the significance of these revenues to an otherwise struggling company, that some pretty big ones would have been. Then there is the extent of any producer, talent and production company shares of PRTS revenues. You can again be fairly certain such arrangements were in place - and they will have proved pretty lucrative to those that had them - but ITV refuses to tell us what, who, or how much.

Finally, there's the question of whether Deloitte's report is really as comprehensive as it at first appears. It says the auditors "considered information relating to more than 60 ITV series . . .", that they "contacted all relevant internal and external suppliers of programming. . .", and "carried out interviews with more than 40 individuals and requested that they raise any issues of which they may be aware".

It is this last bit that turns out to be the key. In terms of the distressingly regular habit (seen also over at the BBC) of disregarding viewers' paid-for choices in favour of options chosen by the producers - albeit we are told with the aim of maintaining programme quality - how did Deloitte find out it had happened at all? Had they audited the votes cast for particular candidates (or songs) against the programme outcomes? Apparently only after someone had fessed up and told them there might be an issue.

So when asked whether Deloitte had audited programmes other than those singled out in the report to see whether viewers' paid-for choices were always complied with, ITV initially declined to discuss the process but later added that they had, in the end, been dependent on what people involved had chosen to tell them.

So do we know for sure that this kind of thing hasn't happened on The X Factor or Britain's Got Talent, or any number of other ITV shows? As things stand, no, we don't. And nor apparently does Michael Grade. We don't know, either, about anything that might have happened more than two years ago.

But given that the practice - all in the cause of not letting stupid viewers spoil good shows, no doubt - appears fairly widespread in the TV entertainment fraternity, at least, it must surely be worth a proper look. Then, perhaps, Grade can get back to the brilliant job he's doing of reinvigorating ITV.